What We Learned From The Best Episode Of ‘Dexter’ This Final Season

That does not necessarily mean a lot, to say that “Scar Tissue” was the best episode of Dexter’s final season, but last night’s episode at least had a surprise, it introduced a great new character, and we have an idea who might be the Brain Surgeon killer. Or at least, we think we do. It wasn’t exactly an edge of your seat episode, but it wasn’t a snoozer, either, though the therapy prattle is beginning to get wearying.

Let’s jump right into the episode.

LaGuerta Returns: We knew LaGuerta would return in this episode. Sadly, it was a dream sequence slash flashback, the double whammy of meaninglessness.

Quinn Passed the Sergeant’s Exam: And just like that dumbass would, he nearly blew his chances at a promotion by getting in a bar fight over his ex-girlfriend, Debra, in front of his new girlfriend, Jamie. Come on, Quinn. HAVE YOU SEEN YOUR NEW GIRLFRIEND? DO YOU REALIZE HOW HOT SHE IS? Bonus: She’s not completely f**ked in the head.

Masuka Has a Daughter: That’s fun, at least. It’s also good to see Dora Madison Burge from Friday Night Lights again. She is apparently the product of Masuka’s sperm donation. Naturally, Masuka hit on her before realizing it was his daughter, but he — of course — recognized his own soulful eyes on her. I have no idea how she’ll play out in the rest of the season, unless she becomes a victim of the Brain Surgeon.

Debra and Dr. Vogel Get Along Famously — They seemed to have skipped the part where Debra wakes up in handcuffs and freaks the hell out at Dr. Vogel and skipped right to the therapy sessions that made up much of the meat of last night’s episode. I love Charlotte Rampling, and I think she’s delivering a strong performance, but the psychobabble is too much. Apparently, the key to Debra’s treatment is reliving the night she shot LaGuerta over and over until she figures it out. It didn’t take her long, either: By the end of the episode, Debra has realized that, given a do-over, she’d make the same decision. She had to accept, not that she’s evil, but that she’s a good person forced to make a bad decision.

Where Is the Procedural Component?: Week to week, the thing that irritates me the most is how Dexter never solves cases, and how SO many murders go unsolved because Dexter kills them. It’s a shame, too, because Dexter is perfectly designed to be a serial/procedural hybrid, like Justified, Veronica Mars, X-Files or Elementary. There’s generally four or five filler episodes in each season of Dexter, and if they’d use that time on a few self-contained cases, it would have improved the show immensely. It would’ve tightened the serialized portion of the series, and the cast, itself, is well situated to solve some actual murders. That way, Dexter could actually put a arrest on his ledger.

We Think We Know the Identity of the Brain Surgeon Killer: He’s a cable guy, naturally. He’s also clearly had brain surgery. Vogel suggested a hospital remove a lesion on the guy’s brain, which was supposed to solve psychopathy problem. Apparently it only made it worse, because the guy — Yates — has his own kill room and a massive body count. I am not, however, ruling out the possibility that Yates is just another former patient of Vogel’s turned serial killer, and not the Brain Surgeon killer. Yates seems to have a thing for women, and not all of the Brain Surgeon Killer’s victims have been women. Also, the Brain Surgeon already knows about Dexter, so why wouldn’t he have recognized him? I think it’s another red herring.

Dexter and Vogel Have a Falling Out: Meanwhile, Dexter discovers through his investigation of Yates that Vogel has been keeping notes on him, which, uh, that’s why psychologists do. But Dexter doesn’t want any part of it. He thinks he’s being used as a lab rat, and tells Vogel that once he’s finished with Yates, he’s finished with Vogel.

Debra Finds Out About Harry: Through Vogel, Debra also became privy to her sessions with Harry, in which she learned that Harry was not only complicit in the Code, but was likewise conflicted. In fact, he was more than conflicted. Harry was so tortured by Dexter’s killings that he took his own life, which seemed like a good idea to Debra. I think once she came to that realization was the first time this season — and maybe last — that we saw a look of peace and happiness on her face. SERENITY NOW.

Debra Tries to Kill Dexter: Now, THAT actually, I didn’t see coming. I got the sense when Debra was sweet to Quinn that she was going to take the easy way out. I did not, expect, however, that she’d try to take Dexter with her. Good for her! Unfortunately, her sanity — for lack of a better word — didn’t last long. After a bystander rescued her, Debra dove back in and rescued Dexter, although the LEAST the show could’ve don was to leave Dexter’s fate as a cliffhanger. Give us one week to believe that everything is not so cut and dry, rather than not only revealing that Dexter was saved, but giving away most of next week’s episode.

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“The limbic system (or paleomammalian brain) is a complex set of brain structures that lies on both sides of the thalamus, right under the cerebrum. It is not a separate system, but a collection of structures from the telencephalon, diencephalon, and mesencephalon.
The limbic system includes the hippocampus, amygdala, anterior thalamic nuclei, septum, habenula, limbic cortex and fornix. It supports a variety of functions, including emotion, behavior, motivation, long-term memory, and olfaction. It appears to be primarily responsible for our emotional life, and has a great deal to do with the formation of memories.”

Why didn’t the guy who saved Deb go back to save Dexter instead of letting the woman he just saved jump back in to the water? He just disappeared right after they got to land. God i hate this show now. And it used to be one of my favorites.

Also, hooray for Masuka finally getting something to do again! “My soulful yet haunting eyes,” hahaha. Although, who the hell tracks down their sperm donor father? It’s hard to think of a more meaningless relationship (outside of wanting to find out about genetic predispositions for cancer and shit).

Totally disagree with the idea that a cliffhanger would’ve worked. That’s just a dumb idea — the same kind of halfass attempt at suspense that this show fails to pull off so often, for which it’s rightly lambasted by everyone. “They could’ve at LEAST saved the ‘Travis is Gellar’ reveal for the end of the season instead of revealing it in the first episode,” right? That’s what everyone preferred? No.

This is Debra’s season; the rock-and-hard-place of her sense of justice and her love for her brother provides the cliffhanger here — i.e., where does she go from there? — not to mention the question of how Dexter’s going to react to the attempt on his life. That’s plenty of legitimate cliffhanger-y stuff that doesn’t rely on some bullshit “ZOMG IS DEXTOR DIED!?” ending that no one with a functioning brain would believe for half a second.

Knowing this show, if they had left Dexter’s fate a cliffhanger, they would have shot their wad in the “Next week on Dexter” trailer.

PREDICTIONS: There’s still an outside shot that Deb is the brain surgeon (no brain surgeon kills since right before she got too drunk to live). Also, Dexter, having been under water for a few minutes, wakes up with some after-effects of his brain being denied oxygen, and is cured of his psychopathy.

Again, there’s plenty of tension there after the SPLASH crisis is resolved. You have either the false tension of, “Is Dexter or Debra going to die? Of course not, not on this show,” or, without having to worry about that, you have the real tension of, “How’s Dexter going to act when he regains consciousness? How can Deb possibly proceed from here?” The big, ostentatious question with the obvious answer — will they drown? no — would have overshadowed the much more interesting, more low-key questions that we can now consider after the drowning question is resolved.

1. sooo… Masuka is a very obvious asian man. so unknowingly has a daughter through sperm donation – and his daughter is AS WHITE AS CAN BE. like if Chris Evans and Elizabeth Banks popped one out. she’s his daughter but she’s not even remotely asian in ANY way? come on.
you might as well have Masuka be Wesley Snipes / Akon black and have her look the same way. THAT’S how ridiculous that is. and the only way they are alike is the laugh. oh, okay.

2. so Deb has been at one point, such a level-headed and intelligent character that she was a Lieutenant in the Miami Metro PD. she might be having some bad days – but we’re supposed to believe that she’s now SO psycho that she knowingly turns a car into a lake to END HER LIFE AND HER BROTHER’S.
…and YET – as psycho as she is now *supposed to be*, that insanity instantly disappears as soon as she’s out of the water, and she instantly dives back in to rescue the brother she JUST TRIED TO MURDER NOT TEN SECONDS BEFORE.
ooohhhkay.

I know this is four month year old post, but I’ll have to disagree with you with your assessment on the actress who plays Niki. ‘White as White can be’? You can totally buy her as being mixed. Just with her eyes alone makes her ambiguous looking. That and I’ve known people who are mixed with Asians with the same look.

Like what I saw what another commenter said: Mixing genes isn’t as straight forward as mixing paint, at least if one expects people to look a certain way.

Might be stupid, but my biggest problem was that we found out this season is taking place a year ago. Was it supposed to be set one year behind when it is airing? Maybe it is just my OCD talking, but the 2012 thing bothered me.

If she wasn’t so surprised by the gift wrapped brains on her door step I would have thought she was in on it.

I had a theory that there was more than one Dexter out there. Vogel let her patients kill while chronicling their activity and influencing each one as an experiment. One of them decided to expose her so she contacted Dexter to clean it all up by killing them all under the guise of the brain surgeon being a former patient. If any of it came to light there wouldn’t be any witnesses to testify against her.

THAT you didn’t see coming? You haven’t seen anything coming. You condemned the season after the 2nd episode because you thought you had it all figured out already. And you were wrong.

The episode ended perfectly. Do you really think Deb and Dexter, or even 1 of them would have died at the end of the 4th episode? Of course not, that would have been the most obvious cliffhanger in the history of television.

I’ll never understand why people continue to watch shows they don’t like. “Oooh, I’m bitching about a show online? I’M SO EDGY AND KEWL.”

Aside from that, this episode was definitely the best so far. It pushed forward with all the major plot-lines, the Masuda’s daughter bit was pretty funny, and that ending scene was crazily awesome. From the way she was acting towards the end I thought she might kill herself, but didn’t think she’d actually try to take Dex with her.

And, about the lack of a cliffhanger… the same people bitching about it not cutting to black after the car hit the water would be bitching just as much if they had actually left it there.

I watch them, since I don’t care about spoilers, but they definitely do give away more than they probably should. I’m not really sure why “Next week on this TV show” previews even exist at all, though. People seem to either dislike them — because of spoilers, or because of vagueness, or misleadingness, or the simple fact that they run over the credits and knock out whatever music was playing — or be indifferent at best.

Well there was no question that dexter is going to be alive in the next episode, so that wouldn’t have been a great cliffhanger. If the episode had just ended with the car hitting the water, that would have created some tension.

Also, is there any reason neither of them considered the fact that the same Vogel who is perfectly alright with creating a psychopathic killer may have killed Harry to protect said psychopath?

@dummypants- You know, as poorly as this show has been written over the last several years, I think you could be on to something. Let’s hope that is not the case, and that the writers come up with a decent grand finale.

You just gave me a frightening thought. What if they end the season the same way they ended last season, but this time she shoots Dexter? And the final moment of last season, as well as all of this season, was all in her head in those moments when she was choosing who to shoot. Ugh. 3-4 years ago I never would have entertained the thought but at this point, I could see them doing that.

The thing that really doesn’t seem to fit with this whole thing about Harry’s suicide is that episode in the first season, where Harry’s nurse, played by Tasha Yar, is over-medicating him and trying to kill him, and Harry tells Dexter to kill her. So Dexter has obviously killed before at that point, and yet Harry wants to live to the extent that he tells Dexter to kill again.

Until now, it’s been easy to deduce that Harry just gradually slipped to a point of inconsolable guilt as Dexter racked up a body count, and eventually decided to kill himself; but this episode made it sound as though he made that decision pretty soon after discovering that first victim, or at least that he regretted it to such an extent that he would never authorize another kill.

The whole water car thing almost made me laugh out loud. Maybe cause last week’s true blood ended with a goofy water scene. Water scenes are just goofy no matter what. People are complaining it wasnt a cliffhanger? Yeah the show is ballsy enough to kill the 2 main characters 4 episodes in

Leaving Dexter’s fate a cliffhanger would have been a massive waste of time, maybe if the episode had ended at the moment of the plunge people could have wondered if Deb would have died, but of course the titular character would be fine.

They totally missed an opportunity to do a Dukes of Hazzard type cliffhanger. Have Harry be the narrator a la Waylon Jennings. ” Now it looks like Dex and Deb are fixing to spend some quality time by the lake. Only, there won’t be any fishin’ going on during this little trip.”

yeah, so stupid, that they had to show debra coming above water with dexter at the end. not to mention how they immediately cut to next week on dexter…

show is so frustrating…i miss the days of doakes and trinity. this happens with so many showtime shows, and part of the reason why it will never be hbo: they don’t know when to quit. first, weeds. now, this. i hate to see how they ruin homeland and shameless.

People are so hard on Homeland season 2. They tried something very different, with that super-fast pace, and yes it got a bit ridiculous towards the end, but it was hardly formulaic. And I believe the showrunners have explicitly said that this season will return to the first season’s more deliberate pace. Peaks and valleys, every show’s got ’em.